Pedley was a believer in the conservation of the Australian flora and fauna, and usually wrote her books from this perspective, singling out 'man' as disconnected from nature and the rest of the animals.

Ethel's preface to Dot and the Kangaroo is as follows:

To the children of Australiain the hope of enlisting their sympathiesfor the many beautiful, amiable, and frolicsome creaturesof their fair land,whose extinction, through ruthless destruction,is being surely accomplished